


Of Secret Santa's and Snowstorms

by Sop12345d



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Can be read as Malcolm/Dani if you want, Christmas, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Secret Santa, holiday fic exchange 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:06:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23413534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sop12345d/pseuds/Sop12345d
Summary: Written for the Prodigal Son Holiday Fic Exchange 2019 for sonshineandshowers but I'm posting it on AO3 just now. Malcolm gets mugged in the middle of a snowstorm and the team has to find him before he freezes to death. The prompt was "Secret Santa".
Relationships: Malcolm Bright & Dani Powell, Malcolm Bright/Dani Powell
Kudos: 55





	Of Secret Santa's and Snowstorms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sonshineandshowers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonshineandshowers/gifts).



> Written for the Prodigal Son Holiday Fic Exchange 2019 for sonshineandshowers but I'm posting it on AO3 just now. Malcolm gets mugged in the middle of a snowstorm and the team has to find him before he freezes to death. The prompt was "Secret Santa". I'm on tumblr at https://wellthatisbloodyfantastic.tumblr.com/ and https://prodigalsonfanblog.tumblr.com/

“Hey Malcolm, where are you going?” Dani asked, putting on her coat as she saw Malcolm rush by her.

He stopped abruptly, grinning sheepishly and fiddling with his scarf, which was hanging untied around his neck. “Oh, I forgot my Secret Santa gift at my apartment this morning and haven’t had the time to go back and get it.”

Around the beginning of December, the team (prompted by Edrisa) had decided to organize a Secret Santa gift exchange where the gift givers and gifts were revealed a week before Christmas. The gift exchange was to be held at Gil’s house, along with a Christmas dinner. JT was bringing his wife Tally, but other than that, no one was bringing a plus one. They had just wrapped up a complicated yet short-lived case involving a postage stamp, a Renaissance painting and a vintage wine, where Malcolm had had another near-death experience by not calling for backup (no surprise there).

Dani sighed fondly and reminded him, “Well, don’t forget to be at Gil’s by 6 pm.”

“I know!” Malcolm replied, already on his way out the door.

She smiled to herself, glancing at her bag which contained Malcolm’s Secret Santa gift. Of course, Edrisa had pried it out of her that she’d picked Malcolm five minutes after they drew names out of an otherwise empty trash bin. Edrisa had picked Tally, and then panicked because she didn’t know Tally well and had no idea what to get her and what if she hated the gift that she chose –

Dani had calmed her down and gave her some ideas for where to start looking, and then had said, “If all else fails, just get her a gift card or a spa certificate. I bet she’ll love whatever you get her.”

When shopping for Malcolm’s gift, she’d had trouble choosing what to buy because she didn’t want to send the wrong message. She liked Malcolm, but she wasn’t ready to enter a relationship right now and besides, Malcolm seemed to like this woman named Eve. So, Dani bought him a blanket with yellow birds on a blue background that she found at a department store. It was perfect because the yellow birds reminded her of Sunshine, Malcolm’s parakeet, and the blue matched Malcolm’s eyes.

Checking the time, she finished her last bit of paperwork and got her things together, mentally going through her to-do list before going to Gil’s for the gift exchange. Go home, get the bottle of wine she was planning on giving Gil, do her hair and pick different shoes, because she’d noticed at lunch that the dress shoes she’d picked yesterday evening were frayed.

Satisfied that she had a plan, she left the precinct, bracing herself for the cold wind and snow that had arrived last night and hadn’t let up all day.

Malcolm practically skipped down the snowy sidewalk, looking forward to the gift exchange at Gil’s house. He’d picked Dani’s name out of the trash bin they’d commandeered for the Secret Santa and had tried to hide the big grin that threatened to show on his face. For a week after that, he’d asked JT, Edrisa and Gil what they thought he should get Dani.

JT had given him a deadpan look before telling him to get her a crossword puzzle book because she loved crosswords, apparently. Edrisa had grinned like the Cheshire Cat when Malcolm told her he’d picked Dani, to which he gave her a half-suspicious glance, but she ended up telling him to buy Dani a pair of fluffy slippers. Gil had rolled his eyes, admonishing him that Secret Santa’s were supposed to be kept a secret, but eventually told him to get her some new tea to try from DAVIDsTEA or something.

During the past couple of days, his mind had taken to overthinking things, worrying that Dani wouldn’t like her gift, which ended up being a pair of brown teddy bear slippers. What if she thought they were too goofy-looking? What if she thought that he was immature? Malcolm felt that over the past few weeks working as a consultant with Gil’s team, he’d become friends with each of them. He didn’t want to jeopardize that with Dani.

All of this was causing him to lose more sleep than he already lost due to the night terrors, and the sleep deprivation was not doing wonders for his profiling work. Just today, he’d missed how a major detail in the suspect’s M.O. would affect that suspect’s in-case-of-emergency plan when she’d been confronted by the police. Realizing that the suspect would kidnap her boyfriend and kill him, Malcolm had headed straight to the suspect’s apartment with barely a quick call to Gil to let him know what was happening to talk her down. She’d been about to shoot him in the chest when Gil and the team had arrived.

On top of that, the hallucinations were getting worse. Between the sleep deprivation and Malcolm poking the hornet’s nest that was his childhood trauma with a stick, he at least heard his father’s voice if not outright saw him out of the corner of his eye a few times a day. It was, literally, driving him crazy. He kept drinking tea to focus, because he knew that coffee would just increase his anxiety, but there was only so much Earl Grey he could brew in the precinct’s kitchen before Gil was giving him that Worried DadTM look.

Just two blocks from his apartment, Malcolm stopped his fast-paced walking, eyes wide. Right in front of him, looking unperturbed by the blowing snow, was his father in his psychiatric hospital uniform, smiling that eerie smile of his. For a second, just a moment really, Malcolm was afraid that Dr. Whitly had really chosen the winter storm as an opportunity to escape and hunt him down. But upon examining his father more closely, he noticed that the snow didn’t seem to land on his father’s shoulders and hair.

Concluding that this was simply a vivid hallucination, Malcolm turned his back, closing his eyes to convince himself that when he’d turn around, his father would be gone. When he opened his eyes, he jumped back in shock upon meeting a pair of blue eyes not six inches from his face. But instead of his father standing before him, it was a short blond-haired man that he didn’t recognize.

The man revealed a knife he’d hidden in his coat sleeve and ordered, “Give me your wallet!”

It took a second for the words to sink in, but when they did, Malcolm was still confused. Was this supposed to be a mugging? He’d never been mugged before. He could feel the outline of his wallet in his pocket but hesitated on what to do. He could talk this man down, of course, or he could just give him his wallet and hope he wouldn’t hurt him. It’s not like Malcolm would have trouble replacing the money.

Apparently the second of hesitation was more than the increasingly nervous man could handle, because he jumped forward, one hand brandishing the wickedly sharp knife, the other pressing into Malcolm’s shoulder and shoving him into a nearby alleyway. Malcolm was too shocked by the sudden movement to do much other than balance himself so he didn’t fall, but when he looked over his shoulder to see if the alleyway was a dead end (he was reasonably sure he could outrun this short man), he was stopped short by the sight of a taller, broad-shouldered black-haired man, also holding a knife and waiting in the shadows.

Feeling trapped, Malcolm put his hands up slowly, the analytical profiler part of his brain taking over while his heart beat sped up. The shorter man clearly relied on the taller one to provide the muscle. Malcolm glanced at the shorter man’s knife, planning to grab it and threaten the taller man with it, when a voice spoke up.

“Oof. Well, Malcolm, you’ve really done it now.”

Martin Whitly stepped out from behind the tall dark-haired man, still clad in his white uniform, shaking his head.

Malcolm froze, only his eyes tracking Dr. Whitly’s movement across his field of vision. His breath caught. _Not now!_ he thought.

“Yo, Harry, I don’t think this guy’s all there,” the tall man commented warily, squinting at Malcolm.

The short man, Harry, paused and looked Malcolm up and down. “Yeah, but he don’t look that big. I bet we can take him.”

Malcolm was barely paying the two men any attention. He only had eyes for his father, who was circling the two muggers like a shark. Closing his eyes to try to will away the image, Malcolm didn’t see the tall man throw a punch, only felt the harsh impact of his head hitting the brick wall of the building at his back, and then darkness.

“It’s 6:20 pm, where’s Bright?” Gil demanded, looking at his watch.

Dani, JT, Edrisa and Tally all glanced at each other around the table, sharing worried looks. None of them had received a text or call from Malcolm to let them know that he’d be running late, and Dani had reminded him of the time to come to Gil’s house when she’d last seen him, so it’s not like he’d forgotten, right?

Gil’s frown deepened. “Something doesn’t feel right.” He stood up and began to pace the living room, tapping his phone and checking something all the while.

“You can say that again,” JT said, eyebrows raised while checking his phone for the fifth time for any texts from Malcolm.

Suddenly, Gil stopped pacing. Turning to the group, he held out his hand and showed them the phone’s screen. A blinking blue dot was in Central Park, while a blue line and numbers in decreasing order showed a trail from the dot’s location in Central Park to two blocks from Malcolm’s apartment.

“I have a tracking app on Malcolm’s phone that we only use in emergencies.” Dani tried and failed to hide her snort, because she knew that that app was used by overprotective parents on their children. “It shows not only his current location but the phone’s location history each day.” Gil glanced at the screen again before showing it to the group. “Now, why would Malcolm head to his apartment, only to stop two blocks away and go to Central Park in this weather?”

Gil had barely finished his sentence when JT and Dani stood up, already knowing what to do. If something was off with Malcolm, they couldn’t afford to take any chances.

Malcolm lifted his head groggily, wincing against the cold and the stiffness of his face. Something sticky had coated the right side of his face, and he slowly brought up a hand to wipe at it absentmindedly. His gloved hand came back covered in reddish-brown flakes, and it occurred to him that he was bleeding. It took a few moments for him to remember why, and then a few more for it to start worrying him that he’d been in the cold for who knows how long in a snowstorm.

Groaning, he tried to get his legs under him to stand up but found his legs too cold and stiff to move. His face had gone numb, but at least he was still wearing his warm winter coat, hat and gloves. Also, his position in the alleyway had shielded him from the worst of the wind and snow. Malcolm suddenly, achingly understood how homeless people must feel when trying to find shelter in the winter. He brought one frozen hand into his coat pocket to feel for his phone to call Gil but found only emptiness. Patting his other pocket, he realized that the muggers had taken his phone and wallet while he was unconscious.

Letting his breath out shakily, Malcolm looked around. There was no one else in the alley and no one else on the street that he could see. Drowsiness overcame him and his eyes started to slip close, but he forced them open, remembering that if he had hypothermia and he fell asleep, he might not ever wake up. His body had stopped shivering a few minutes ago.

The sirens were barely necessary, for almost no one was on the streets at this time in this weather, but Gil had them on anyway to get through the traffic lights. Dani kept calling Malcolm’s phone while JT kept an eye out in the back seat, watching the streets for any sign of Malcolm on their way to his apartment.

Gil’s grip tightened on the steering wheel as he pulled up next to an alleyway and he spotted Bright. “Guys!” he shouted, leaping out of the car.

JT and Dani jumped out and raced to his side. Gil checked Malcolm’s pulse, prodding him into wakefulness. “Hey, Gil,” he mumbled, face pale. “Sorry I couldn’t make it to the dinner…”

“Don’t worry about that, Bright. It’s gonna be okay,” Gil reassured him, lifting him with JT’s help and carrying him into Malcolm’s apartment. He’d been given a spare key by Malcolm a few years back.

“Is he going to be okay?” Dani asked, gathering blankets and covering Malcolm with them.

“I don’t know,” Gil replied, rubbing some feeling back into Malcolm’s hands and feet. “We should call an ambulance. It looks like he hit his head.”

“No… No hospitals,” Malcolm protested, shaking his head.

“Kid, come on, you have a concussion and the beginning of frost bite!”

“No…” Malcolm groaned.

Gil sighed. “Fine. But we’re staying here until you’re better. I’ll call Edrisa and Tally over.”

Edrisa treated the frost bite on Malcolm’s nose and ears, talking about the dangers of cold weather the whole time, while Dani covered him in the blanket she’d gotten him as a gift. Malcolm, a bit more awake now, looked down and smiled. “Awww, it’s Sunshine!”

Dani smiled affectionately. “Yeah, I figured you’d like it.” She glanced over to the kitchen where JT and Tally were preparing an impromptu dinner from what they’d brought over from Gil’s house. “Merry Christmas, Malcolm.”

He sat up and reached for a red bag next to his bed, handing it to her before sitting back with a small wince. Dani opened the tissue paper to reveal… teddy bear slippers?

“I love them!” she exclaimed, grinning.

Malcolm let out a subtle relieved sigh. “Great.”

“Mind if I sit next to you?” she asked, putting the slippers on.

“Not at all,” he replied, and she joined him under the blanket. They both watched Gil trying to figure out how to work Malcolm’s TV while Edrisa made cooing sounds over Sunshine and JT and Tally hummed Christmas carols under their breath in the kitchen when they thought no one was listening.

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism is appreciated!


End file.
